Enterprise Architect - Retail Systems

The Enterprise Architect – Retail Systems will define the strategic architecture for O’Reilly’s retail technology landscape, ensuring scalability, security, and modernization. This role drives standards, roadmaps, and integration strategies for store operations, POS systems, payments, returns, enterprise catalog, and customer transactions. Collaborating across IT and business functions, the architect will influence technology direction, ensure governance, and align solutions with business objectives while delivering innovation.

This role is located in Springfield, MO.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS

• Develop and execute an enterprise architecture roadmap aligned with business and IT strategies.
• Define and drive the enterprise architecture strategy for retail systems, ensuring alignment with business and IT objectives.
• Develop the target-state architecture and technology roadmap for store systems, POS solutions, transactional workflows, and integrated retail applications.
• Provide prescriptive guidance on retail system modernization, cloud adoption, API integration, microservices, and event-driven architectures.
• Collaborate with IT leadership and business stakeholders to evaluate retail technology investments, ensuring optimal scalability, performance, and security.
• Establish and enforce architectural standards across retail applications, integrating best practices for resilient and scalable solutions.
• Partner with infrastructure and cloud teams to guide the modernization of legacy retail systems and align with enterprise cloud strategy.
• Lead technical evaluations of vendor solutions, ensuring alignment with O’Reilly’s technology and business requirements.
• Oversee integration strategies for third-party retail software, ensuring seamless connectivity between POS, inventory, and customer engagement systems.
• Influence the governance framework for retail technology, defining compliance, security, and performance benchmarks.
• Work closely with engineering teams, guiding solution architects and technical leads in executing enterprise retail system initiatives.
• Develop and maintain an architectural repository, capturing reference architectures, best practices, and reusable design patterns.
• Act as a trusted advisor to senior IT and business leadership, providing expertise on technology trends and innovation in the retail industry.
• Provide hands-on leadership in defining and implementing modern architectural frameworks across applications, infrastructure, and data.

Behavioral Competencies

• Ensures Accountability: Holds self and others accountable for meeting commitments and achieving business objectives.
• Strategic Thinking: Sees ahead to future possibilities and translates them into breakthrough strategies.
• Manages Complexity: Makes sense of complex, high-quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems.
• Decision Quality: Applies sound judgment to make effective and timely decisions.
• Communicates Effectively: Develops and delivers multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding to different audiences.
• Collaboration & Influence: Works effectively with cross-functional teams, engaging stakeholders across business and IT.
• Innovates & Adapts: Creates new and better ways to drive digital transformation and optimize technology landscapes.
• Balances Stakeholders: Anticipates and balances the needs of multiple stakeholders.
• Optimizes Work Processes: Continuously improves work processes, driving operational efficiency and best practices.
• Instills Trust: Gains the confidence and trust of others through honesty, integrity, and authenticity.

SKILLS/EDUCATION/EXPERIENCE

Required:

• Proven ability to navigate complex enterprise architecture challenges, drive architectural decisions for $20M+ Retail Systems Portfolio decisions, having a direct financial correlation to company results and performance. 15+ years of experience in enterprise architecture, cloud strategy, and IT transformation
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Information Systems, or Engineering (equivalent experience considered in lieu of degree). Over six years of experience of leading architecture teams up to ten solution and domain architects, mentoring architects, and influencing enterprise-wide decisions.
• Strong background in retail system architecture, including POS, store operations, payments, and customer engagement platforms.
• Deep understanding of microservices architecture, event-driven systems, and cloud-native application development.
• Experience